{"id":10077,"date":"2022-03-11T04:19:56","date_gmt":"2022-03-11T04:19:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/?page_id=10077"},"modified":"2022-03-11T16:02:10","modified_gmt":"2022-03-11T16:02:10","slug":"egalitarian-societies-past-and-future-what-are-communist-values","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/volume-13-number-3\/egalitarian-societies-past-and-future-what-are-communist-values\/","title":{"rendered":"Egalitarian Societies: Past and Future. What are Communist Values?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nIndigenous village of Secotan on Roanoke Island (now part of North Carolina, USA) as painted by English artist John White in 1586. Notice the images of collective life and equal-sized dwellings among the corn fields.\u00a0 This is one of many examples of an egalitarian agricultural society.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LOS ANGELES (USA), March 3\u2014 \u201cPrivate property took away our freedom,\u201d Nina declared.\u00a0 We were continuing to discuss The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow. We want to learn what we can, from prehistory and cross-cultural comparisons, about the possibility of an egalitarian future.<\/p>\n

This discussion led us to think more deeply about what we mean by \u201cegalitarian.\u201d And how to describe more accurately the kind of society we hope and work for.<\/p>\n

We agreed with Nina.\u00a0 But this book attacks that idea, even as it also attacks the dominant ideology that capitalism is the only way for people to live today.\u00a0 The authors reject the goal of \u201cegalitarianism\u201d (meaning communism). It is \u201cslippery,\u201d they say, meaning different things in different societies.<\/p>\n

They describe an egalitarian society as one where (1) \u201cmost people feel they ought to be the same\u201d in some important ways, and (2) that ideal is \u201clargely achieved in practice.\u201d<\/p>\n

When we talk about communism as \u201cegalitarian\u201d we don\u2019t mean the capitalist ideal of \u201cequality before the law.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 Or liberal (and socialist) ideals like \u201cequal pay for equal work\u201d and \u201cone person, one vote.\u201d\u00a0 Liberals don\u2019t criticize capitalist ideals, just that it doesn\u2019t achieve them in practice.\u00a0 In contrast, communism will have no wages, \u201cequal\u201d or not.\u00a0 And it will mobilize masses for real participation in making decisions, not in an occasional election.<\/p>\n

The authors don\u2019t critique capitalist ideas about equality.\u00a0 Instead they \u201cimagine\u201d a society where everyone believed they were \u201cequal before the gods\u201d but half of them had no property or legal rights.\u00a0 This takes them back to their critique of the \u201cstages\u201d theory of human history.<\/p>\n

Lots of evidence shows that it\u2019s not true that humans moved from foraging \u201cup\u201d to agriculture and on \u201cup\u201d to modern capitalism<\/strong>.\u00a0 But the authors go beyond their facts to argue that how people produce what they need has little or no connection to how they organize their society.\u00a0 They acknowledge Marx briefly but throw out historical materialism along with capitalist ideas of \u201cprogress.\u201d<\/p>\n

We aren\u2019t convinced.\u00a0 Eleanor, our anthropologist, commented that the authors often knock down \u201cstraw people\u201d instead of confronting real arguments.\u00a0 They \u201ctease\u201d us with fascinating tidbits of information but use them in doubtful ways.<\/p>\n

For example, men in some New Guinea villages \u201chide\u201d secret musical instruments from the women.\u00a0 Marxist anthropologists who lived among these folks analyzed this in terms of the ideology and practice of sexism.<\/p>\n

But the authors see these secret instruments as a model of private property.\u00a0 Since that society doesn\u2019t have a \u201cstate\u201d they argue that private property is linked instead to \u201cthe sacred.\u201d They imply that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with private property.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t swallow it all at face value,\u201d remarked Nina.<\/p>\n

Ernie connected the book\u2019s focus on \u201cfreedom\u201d (in contrast to \u201cequality\u201d) with Graeber\u2019s anarchism.\u00a0 \u201cFreedom,\u201d he noted, has as just as many interpretations as \u201cequality.\u201d It\u2019s just as slippery.<\/p>\n

The anarchist view elevates individualism.\u00a0 \u201cIndividuals were routinely on the move for [many] reasons,\u201d the authors write, \u201cincluding taking the first available exit route if one\u2019s personal freedoms were threatened.\u201d Linda pointed out that people leaving the society they grew up in would have been unlikely to survive unless they left in groups. Humans are social animals.<\/p>\n

So what would be \u201cequal\u201d (the same for everyone) in a communist egalitarian society?\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Our group agreed that everyone will have equal access to the resources they need:\u00a0 housing, health care, food, water, and much more.\u00a0 Everyone will have equal access to political agency:\u00a0 the ability to help shape our collective lives.\u00a0 People have different needs, skills, and commitments to the collective, but we will value each other equally.<\/p>\n

Or maybe, Marcia suggested, communism\u2019s core values are neither \u201cfreedom\u201d nor \u201cequality.\u201d\u00a0 Perhaps they include solidarity\u2014 standing with and for each other.\u00a0 Cooperation (collectivity).\u00a0 Hospitality\u2014caring for everyone\u2019s needs, wherever they go.\u00a0 The ability of the masses to shape society. To make decisions for oneself in the context of the collective.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cThink for yourself, but act for others<\/strong>.\u201d\u00a0 How we organize society depends on how we resolve contradictions between collectivity and autonomy.\u00a0 We look forward to reading other comrades\u2019 thoughts.<\/p>\n

Read our article series on the history of humanity: “Communism: Our Heritage and Future” here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Front page of this issue<\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Indigenous village of Secotan on Roanoke Island (now part of North Carolina, USA) as painted by English artist John White in 1586. Notice the images of collective life and equal-sized dwellings among the corn fields.\u00a0 This is one of many examples of an egalitarian agricultural society.   LOS ANGELES (USA), March 3\u2014 \u201cPrivate property took … Continue reading Egalitarian Societies: Past and Future. What are Communist Values?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6495,"parent":10042,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-10077","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10077"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10104,"href":"https:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10077\/revisions\/10104"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}